1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic media such as digital audio and/or video files, for viewing and communication. More particularly it relates to a system and method for disseminating user chosen media files for subscribing clients, over a network such as the internet, through the employment of customized media file-populated individual media browsers. Users become subscribing clients for current and associated individual media browsers upon registration over a network such as the Internet.
In use for commercial purposes such as promotion of products or services, or for non commercial use such as electronic communication and inventorying of collections of media, the system herein provides great utility for maintaining and sending organized collections of media.
Hosted on a network accessible server operated by the system herein, each media browser has or is associated with a unique media browser identifier. The identified media browsers are populated by a known user or a subscribing client, with media files chosen by the subscribing client for association with, and operative play on a local computing device using the media browser, by the subscribing client or a subsequent user to which access to the identifiable media browser is communicated.
Consequently for a commercial concern, such as a furniture store or an electronics manufacturer or a tour operator, each media browser having a unique browser identifier, and populated by the subscribing client, functions to display or play the media files which the subscribing client has chosen to populate thereon. In use for a commercial concern, one or a plurality of media files, specific to or relating to the subscribing client's products or services or other information, are populated to an individual media browser. Access to use the media browser is then communicated to customers or users interested in such.
Thus a furniture retailer may populate individual media browsers with audio and/or video media concerning different types of furniture or interior decorating using their furniture. A tour operator may populate a media browser with media files which depict the sights and sounds of various travel tours, or, a bike manufacturer may wish to populate the media browser with an association to maintenance audio and video media files.
As can be seen, in a commercial mode, each media browser can be populated to containerize and distribute the type and number of media files, which the original subscribing client chooses to group and distribute. Such a system provides small businesses as well as corporate conglomerates a means to provide audio and/or video media to regular and potential new clients and know the recipients will receive the intended media in a manner which will generate or render on the user's individual computing device.
The system herein also has abundant utility in a non commercial manner for categorized orderly inventorying and/or distribution of media files by users who become the subscribing client upon registering with the system. In a similar fashion to a commercial user, such users will obtain communicative access to one or a plurality of media browsers, with each having a unique media browser identifiers. The originating user or subscribing client, has initial administrative rights to populate and change the media files associated with each media browser having unique identifiers. The populated media browser associated with the user-chosen media files, can employ the identified media browser as an electronic container for the populated media files, for communication to friends and relatives and others. Or, they may employ it as an inventorying system for their chosen media files to maintain such in an orderly categorized fashion for later access and play on a local computing device.
In either fashion, the system employs media browsers which employ a unique identifier and act as digital containers for user-chosen media files populated to the unique media browser. When populated by an identified user who upon registering became a subscribing client, the media files chosen by each respective subscribing client for association with a uniquely identified media browser, become grouped files playable on a local computing device communication over a network to access the individual media browser. Access can be limited to a single subscribing client associated with an individual media browser, or can be by third parties who receive access thereto from the subscribing client who populates it, or who leaves access to the individual browsers open to all.
The customized media browsers are enabled with categorized menus for playing, searching out and retrieving and electronically communicating the grouped media files populated thereby by a respective subscribing client, as a user inventorying and playing system, or as a means for communicating the group of populated files for play by third parties. So enabled, the media browser and associated media files thereto may be communicated to requesting users in a packaged or customized digital format which is determined as operatively-employable by the local computing device and the display and sound capabilities of the destination computing device of the remote requesting user.
2. Prior Art
In recent years, the ability of users to communicate over wide area networks such as the internet and receive and display media in the form of electronic files for local reproduction of audio and video has advanced tremendously. In the early years of internet access bandwidth on networks such as the Internet was a major problem for transmission of media to user computers as broadband service was not widely available. Not only did this lack of transmission capability require extensive and time-consuming compression of media files sent from servers, the slow nature of processing and video display upon user computers and transmission rates further inhibited such communication.
An additional problem encountered by users, especially those sharing files, is that media was, and still is, available in many non compatible digital formats. Further, the plurality of available file formats in combination with the many formats for file compression and transmission, has compounded the problem of users receiving media files which are incompatible with their local computing device. More recently, with the logarithmic rise in smart phones which are available from many different manufacturers who use different operating systems, and who provide models with differing processing and video display capabilities, the problem of communicating media files in a manner which insures their playability on arrival, has become ever more complicated.
Because of this compatibility problem for both audio and video files included in the general term used herein as media files, many computing devices from smartphones to desktop computers suffer an inability at times to display a video file or photo, or play audio files retrieved from a website or sent electronically from another user. Over time as operating systems increased and user equipment types changed, a simple video or audio file to be viewed on a user computing device, needed to be available on a server accessed by the user in a high number of digital formats to accommodate the different types of devices and computer operating systems used by users. This is compounded by the different types of viewing systems and software each such user might employ on their respective user computing device.
In recent years, the availability of low cost broadband internet service has become widespread both wired and wireless. Media files which used to take an hour for transmission from a server to a user device, now take minutes or seconds to communicate across the network. With this revolution in cost, transmission capability, and speed, has come a widespread user demand for increased communication of media such as video with audio to be provided in a digital format on an infinite number of subjects.
However, as technology has improved with broadband transmission, so has it improved with user viewing devices. In earlier years file transmission of media was generally a choice between audio and video files capable of user employment on the APPLE or WINDOWS operating systems. With these two operating systems a few types of standardized media playing and displaying software were developed and/or widely user-employed.
In more recent years, with the advent of PDA's, tablet computers, smart phones, game devices, webtops, and other computing devices capable of internet communication and onboard data processing sufficient for media display, another problem has arisen. There are numerous manufacturers providing various component configurations and different operating systems for such game playing devices, smart phones, and PDA's, and other fixed and mobile computing devices.
Along with the numerous operating systems, has arisen numerous applications and programs which render video and sound on the user's device working in concert with the operating system. Thus, whereas encoded video a few years ago might be transmitted slowly to a home computer, using one of two major operating systems, in one or two file formats, today, there are numerous ways the audio and video itself may be digitally stored and played. This has caused the development of a plethora of combinations of operating systems, hardware, and onboard rendering software to which the audio or video media might need to be communicated properly for display and playing.
This ongoing expansion of operating systems, devices, bandwidth, and availability, has created a new problem for companies who benefit from informational and other audio and video advertising media being made available to millions of users connected online. Most users be they retailers and commercial companies or a teenager, are not adept computer programmers as that is not their core business or concern. Users on the other hand are becoming more and more sophisticated about how they access, shop for, and research products and services, and how they store and retrieve media for personal use. Consequently consumer users, with the ability to receive media in the form of audio and video on their local computing device, seek out video and audio information which is playable locally. They do so for personal use in real time or at a future date and in relation to products and services sold by companies.
Companies being adept at retailing and promoting services, have a choice. They must host their own servers which will require storing huge amounts of data and media files, and do so using a high number of differing formats for each such file, for each product and service, in order to try and provide advertising to users with widely varying computing devices, using varying operating systems and rendering software. Alternatively, companies providing desired media to users must sub contract this task to outside firms who may or may not be adept at providing users the proper media in the proper digital format.
Both choices are not desirable in that a company's reputation may be harmed by their inability to provide media from their own server, but it may be equally harmed if a contractor cannot or does not provide such media files in the correct digital format and with any required accompanying digital files to interface on the users computing device. Further, the company selling the products and services must provide the media files needed at a bandwidth which the user's device may employ speedily to render the video locally for viewing, or risk the user moving elsewhere for product and service information.
Users of computing devices from smartphones to tablets to desktop computers also have a dilemma in the retrieval and playing of media. There is not organized system to store and retrieve audio and video files which are found online, sent by friends, or received in a purchase. This results in audio and video files and links being lost and forgotten, or at best hard to find when perhaps thousands of audio and video files and links are available on any individual computing device.
A further problem exists in this dilemma where users handle such media communication and transmission themselves, or have such handled by contractors. There is no standardized uniform manner to offer users vendor-specific content, where users can ascertain by a category what is available from a specific vendor of products and/or services in which the user has interest in acquiring or needs information. Neither is there a manner in which to hereafter choose the media they wish communicated from such a category. Neither is there any universally recognizable format to provide such a categorization system and data file delivery, nor the ability to save and inventory received media files on a new computing device by a new or current user.
Consequently, large and small companies and retailers who are willing to provide consumer users with highly pertinent information about products and services, for sales, service, and the like, are going to great expense to do so with less than stellar results. This is because consumer users visiting each website, must ascertain where the communicable media actually resides, and then tunnel through numerous pages to find it. On each website the process may be different depending upon the initial programming. Further, if a consumer user wishes to share the information found with others, the subsequent consumer must navigate the same process and is not assured that they have the exact media files as the first consumer user who referred them.
For example, a large retailer of home improvement goods displays a website accessible by anyone. Users interested in the firm's products must navigate to the website first, and then ascertain the type of menu and product information provision system the specific website is offering. It is a learning process for each site visited by a user since there is no common format for product and service vendors to offer. If the user finds what they are looking for, and leaves the site, and visit the site again, subsequently, they must hope the site is organized the same, or start the process anew. Should they wish to tell a friend about a discovered product or service, the best they might do is email a link to the site, and if organized to accept it, a link to a spot on the site. However the subsequent user visiting the site may or may not receive the same media files on the same service or product.
Non commercial users of computing devices have a similar communication, retrieval, and inventorying problem for media files. Since users with a specific interest or skill or hobby, tend to know other users with the same interests, they frequently have the same leanings in purchasing products and services, or finding online videos and media for personal use. However, in order to inform another user about a new video found, or a product or service or other information which is available from a company, or on the internet, currently the best a user might do is send a message with a hyperlink to a web page of common interest. The friend, so informed, must repeat the previous user's learning curve on visiting the recommended site and hope they are viewing the same media files as their predecessor. However, neither the receiving friend, nor the communicating user have any organized or categorized means for storing these websites, media files, photos, and other media in a manner where it may be easily found again and retrieved.
If users be they commercial or individuals had a means to provide other users with an easy-to-use system, employing a common format for user information lookup, which standardized both the viewing area and menus, and which also employs software adapted to ascertain the user's device and rendering requirements to deliver the digital media in a proper useable format, both sending users and receiving users would be well served. Users whether inventorying themselves or communicating media to others, would immediately recognize the location of categorized information for the video, place, or company of interest and be able to easily navigate and request the information they require or play the earlier found media.
If such a system employed an electronic container, so to speak, for the grouping and inventorying of information relevant to each respective individual subscribing client, one user instead of forwarding a link to a site, could forward an entire electronic container of media files for the information available from a specific vendor or about a specific subject and containing media files related thereto.
Consequently, such a system would render media inventorying and dissemination from user to an associated user, for information from websites, found video or audio clips, photos, or sales information from individual companies of common interest, easy to accomplish. Further, this standardized electronic container and categorical information delivery system, featuring user assembled media such as audio videos from various electronic sites, or other technical information about individual vendors for products and services in each electronic container or browser, the system would serve to promote vastly increased dissemination of the chosen grouped media from the subscribing client. This is especially true if the system makes it easy for users to retrieve media of interest and to forward such to additional users such as those on social networking programs like FACEBOOK.
As such, in the modern era of the internet and broadband, and social networking amongst users, what is needed is a common recognizable organized system for inventorying and for delivery of media to users, relating to the interest of the subscribing client or sending user. Such a system would allow for the containerized communication of selections of media files from user to user with access to all media files of the assembling user being provided along with a categorized graphical interface to access the media. Thus, groups of songs, or videos, or photos, can be assembled and related to a media browser and sent to friends and relatives for subsequent enjoyment and use.
For commercial use, individual respective companies and providers of services and products, and related to information in general for which users desire media files.
Such a system should employ an electronic packaging or relationship of files such as a browser or an electronic packaging of the respective sender or originating user or seller's media files, or other related digital media files, in a grouped or categorized fashion of related files. Such a system should allow users to choose the media they wish communicated and thereafter package the digital media files, communicate such to others and know the subsequent recipient will be able to play the media in a format employable on the individual destination device employed by the user.
Still further, in relation to product and service promotion, such a system should be useable at kiosks or on user smart phones and devices in or near the subscribing client's stores, or online. Additionally, such a system should enable the media forwarded to a first user in proper format and with associated codecs and drivers, to be forwarded by that user, to a subsequent user. The system when forwarding the digital media files to any subsequent user will adapt the contents communicable to the subsequent user with the container, with files, drivers, and codecs if required, for employment on that respective subsequent user's computing device.
Still further, in furtherance of downstream or continued user-device compatibility, such a system should employ an interface, which during the start of a user session or login on a current or new computing device, ascertains a unique identifier for the user, the user's computing device, and the media browser or containers being used by the identified user. Further the system should ascertain the type of media browser being employed by the respective user, and the electronic digital file requirements for the discerned browser as required for the current user computing device, to render the media useable by the current user's device.
Once so discerned, the user's computer device is assigned a local computing device identifier, or access point identifier, on which the uniquely identified browser and/or file container reside. Thereafter the system maintains a database of identifiers which relate the media browser identifier and the computer device specific configuration for playing media files and file requirements for future transmission to the specific device. Further, the system should employ a browser or file container, which if access thereto is forwarded to a subsequent user, is adapted with polling software adapted to the task to re-ascertain the local machine requirements for communicated media, assign the new machine a unique identifier for that user device in the system, and subsequently communicate digital files packaged to properly render on the subsequent computer system or access point, at the location of the uniquely identified browser or file container.
Still further, such a system should allow users who employ the media browser or file container on their local device, to employ it for inventorying and to catagorize and group new media files as they are downloaded, and thereby maintain the employed database of such files in groups of one or a plurality of digital media and software files related to subjects or otherwise categorized on their local machine. Additionally, such users should be able to send access to the entire media browser or electronic container with its unique browser identifier, from their device to other users, or, allow such users to send categorized sections to other users for use on their browsers which will be provided to the subsequent users in a file format and with all associated files to render and play the sent media on their local machine.
Additionally, such a system in a commercial setting should allow a company to populate and distribute access to electronic media browsers which act as containers for the categorized information using unique identifiers, or to subcontract the task and always have a uniform manner of delivery to users requesting information, so they may easily find the media they require if it is available.
Still further, using the unique local computing device identifier on which the uniquely identified media browser with grouped associated files is hosted, such a system will endeavor to maintain the database of all such unique user identifiers, user computing device identifiers, media browser identifiers, and the user computer device configuration of local display and audio file requirements, and to thereafter communicate future media files to such respective user devices, in the proper file format and in the grouped file package containing all files, drivers, codecs, or other software required, to employ requested media files on that local device.
An object of the present invention is to provide a media browser system to receive, send, and inventory media files and information, in a manner which is categorically relevant to each subscribing client's interests, or products and services in a manner containerized to operate on an identified local device for the user.
It is another object of the invention to electronically host, or provide communication with such files and information in a manner which would be detectable by conventional standards of internet search engines so users seeking the information contained therein, may find it using such search engines which would provide links to the appropriate container of categorized information relevant to their search.
It is another object of the invention, to provide such media browsers as electronic containers for media files with unique browser identifiers, which will continue to access and/or store media files in the future which can be provided in proper format and with required files and software to render the media files on the local computing device using the unique machine identifier, and browser identifier, in a database.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such a system, where a first uniquely identified user receiving such a uniquely identified media browser or electronic file container for use on their local machine, can use it personally as an inventorying system, or can forward access to the media browser by email or on a network to subsequent users, who will receive a unique user identifier along with their computing device identifier, and who will subsequently receive such files and software in a fashion adapted for use on their local machine, irrespective of how such was delivered to the prior user.